Naomi Ullum is not a starving artist. Her plate is actually a bit overloaded.

Thursday

Feb 26, 2009 at 12:01 AMFeb 26, 2009 at 5:00 PM

Davina Jamison - The Hutchinson News - djamison@hutchnews.com

When not teaching classes at Central Christian College in McPherson or to the Society of Decorative Painters in Wichita, she's working on commissioned mural projects at her studio, The Paintin' Place.

Last week, she and a team of helpers, mostly students, were finishing a mural that spanned four 10-by-21-foot panels.

Once complete, each panel was taken off its frame and rolled into a big tube to be transported. Once it arrived at its destination - a day care in Wichita - it would be applied like wallpaper, Ullum said. Then there would be more touchup work to do.

"My career just has two facets," she added. "The teaching is so important because it teaches the next generation" and keeps the art alive.

This is far from her first mural. Ullum does about four a year, usually crammed into school and summer breaks.

She contracts the work through Art Effects. Robert Elliott, with the business, subcontracts artists all over Wichita for projects.

She has painted murals for two Via Christi campuses in Wichita - the flower shop at St. Joseph and a 960-square-foot work on the eighth-floor Harry Hynes Memorial Hospice at St. Francis - but most of the time the work is done on site, rather than in the studio.

This project was a space challenge. Ullum had to block off her main entrance to fit the mural, while the rest of her work was crowded into other areas of her studio, pushed aside for the moment.

The collection includes paintings, furniture and stroke-work adorning plates - most tending to floral themes.

This one, for a Christian day care, features Jesus on a playground, and the children surrounding him are the actual children who attend there, Ullum said.

It's not her only religious work, and it's far from her largest undertaking.

Ullum and one of her students, Doreen Jones, were part of a large team of artists who helped restore St. Anthony Roman Catholic Church in Wichita to its former grandeur. The intense project took about eight months of detailed work, she said.

If you haven't seen it, it's worth it, Jones said. "It's very beautiful."

The 2005 renovation replicates the church's original decoration, said to be completed in 1909, and included repainting the ceiling and walls, the altar, all the murals and statues.

Jones, a member of the Society of Decorative Painters and a student of Ullum's, said it was her first paying job as an artist.

She has helped Ullum on several mural projects, however.

"It's free expression," said Jones, who was working on painting birds into the mural last week. In class, you follow a lesson plan, but with a mural you have more creative freedom.

Though there are some business-minded aspects to doing commissioned work - consulting with clients, mapping out a plan for the mural and working around architecture - Ullum still finds it inspiring.

"I don't get stagnant," she said. "I constantly get to do new things, not things I would do myself. ... There are more places to put my inspiration, and more ways to show it."

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The Paintin' Place

Naomi Ullum's studio at 2611 E. Third Ave. is open by appointment for visitors to view or buy her art. Call (620) 663-4569 and leave a message to make an appointment.